With particular reference to the oncology sector, but not only, it is known that to carry out numerous types of therapeutic treatments, the patients are connected to a parenteral infusion line placed in communication with a series of bags containing the drugs to be administered.
Each bag is connected to the infusion line independently from the others by means of a series of valves and the dispensing of the drugs to the patient is done in succession, placing between the administration of one drug and the next an intermediate stage of cleaning of the infusion line by means of a lavage of a saline solution, so as to avoid any type of contamination between drugs.
In other words, these types of therapeutic treatments consist in the following sequence of operations: administering of the first drug, cleaning of the infusion line, administering of the second drug, new cleaning of the infusion line, administering of the third drug, and so on.
The drugs continue to be administered until the relevant bags containing the necessary doses prescribed by the doctor for the correct therapeutic treatment are completely empty.
The filling of the bags with the above doses occurs during a delicate preliminary stage during which a hospital operator, with care and attention, doses the necessary quantities inside the bags.
To perform this operation, the hospital technician usually has at disposal a series of bottles containing the drugs, from which he/she takes the required quantities and transfers these into the bags by means of a plurality of syringes (one for each drug, to avoid, in this case as well, any possible contamination between the fluids).
For this purpose, each syringe is made up of a syringe body made of transparent material, on which is shown a graduated measuring scale and inside which is fitted, sealed, a sliding piston, which is manually operated by the operator by means of a thrust rod.
The entire operation of taking, dosing and transferring drugs from the bottles to the bags, therefore, is performed in a completely manual way and without any automation, suctioning each drug inside the syringe body until the preset quantity is achieved indicated on the graduated scale and, then, dispensing the contents of the syringe inside the corresponding bag.
As will be easily appreciated by a person expert in the sector, this sequence of operations involves a series of drawbacks, including the fact that, for the correct transfer and dosing of the drugs, the strength, capacity and experience of the operator are all important in performing such operation.
In this respect, it must be pointed out that the considerable frequency with which these operations are performed often causes pain and/or lesions to the hands of the operator, who has to manually force on the thrust rod to draw the drugs up inside the syringes and, subsequently, to dispense them.
At the same time, the fact cannot be ignored that the correct dosing of the drugs inside the syringes depends only on the care and skill of the operator and that, in the case of wrong dosage, the risk exists of compromising the successful outcome of the therapy prescribed by the doctor during the patient administering stage.
In this respect, it must be underscored that the repetitiveness and monotony of the dosing operation cannot but increase the risk of lack of attention on the part of the operator while performing his/her duties and, consequently, the probability of an imprecise and incorrect dosage.